A Poet's Blog: Roger N.Taber shares his thoughts & poems...
Thoughts and observations by English poet Roger N. Taber, a retired librarian and poet-novelist.- "Ethnicity, Religion, Gender, Sexuality ... these are but parts of a whole. It is the whole that counts." RNT [NB While I have no wish to create a social network, I will always reply to critical emails about my poetry. Contact: rogertab@aol.com].
Sadly, a bad fall in 2012 has left me with a mobility problem, and being diagnosed with prostate cancer the same year hasn't helped, but I get out and about with my trusty walking stick as much as I can, take each day as it comes and try to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. Many of my poems reflect the need to nurture a positive-thinking mindset whatever life throws at us.
Now, a street is far more than a place where people live, more even than those people themselves.
A street is part of history, stretching back through time and forward into the future.
For now and always, we are a part of all that...
It used to be a GOOD feeling if perhaps less so in recent years. (Well, that's the nature of change for you, rarely for the better when it comes to the local environment.) Even so, the street where I live now and streets where I once lived hold happy memories as well as sad ones so... thank you streets for those.
EVERY STREET HAS SOMETHING TO SAY
I’ve walked along a busy street
as the sun rises, shedding its rays like tears
for all I am not
I’ve walked along a busy street
come noon, Apollo’s heat on me like a lover
offering comfort
I’ve walked along a busy street
in a gentle twilight, its lampposts like trees
bidding me sleep tight
I’ve walked along a busy street
as the sun begins to set, felt like a movie star
on a red carpet
I’ve walked along a busy street
to my own front door, proudly acknowledging
I am a part of it
[London: Kentish Town, Oct 2010] Copyright R. N. Taber 2010
[Update 5/1/17: All my poetry collections are out of print and it is unlikely there will be any print (revised) editions; they sold well (for poetry) but I had to self-publish them because no poetry publishers were willing to combine general and gay-interest poetry. I am in the process of preparing revised editions in e-format for Google Play but this is likely to take some time as I am in my 70's now and am kept busy overcoming various health problems.]RT
[Update April 2016: I read this poem over a video shot by my friend Graham Collett for my You Tube channel some time ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvoS6PLKqSA Some readers have said the previous link does not work so I have copied and reinstated it; if it still does not work, go to my channel and search under title. As feedback suggests some of you cannot always access YouTube for one reason or another, I have also posted the video below.]
Today’s poem has not appeared on the blog before, I included it among some 100+ others in my new collection, divided into seven themed sections for easy reading. Let’s face it. No one sits down and reads a poetry book so I have made it easy for readers to (hopefully) makes the most of all my collections; he or she can dip into one section of about 20-25 poems now and then before dipping into another at his or her leisure.
I hope to be around for a few more years yet. Even so, I am always aware that when my time is up, the blogs will vanish into cyberspace and all that will remain of my poems (and me) will be in my collections. The sum total of my collections is a diary of journeys short and long, delightful and grim, that comprise my life. Anyone who cares to read them may or may not discern which poems have their roots in autobiography and which do not, but even imagination has to be nurtured by a creative mind, and the mind of poet has to be worth exploring. Well, doesn’t it...?
.
Now, regular readers will know how much I love trees. I am fortunate to live near Hampstead Heath and have written several poems about it that express, if only in part, the immense satisfaction I take from strolling among its grassy slopes and ponds, but especially admiring its splendid trees of all varieties. Needless to say, I am a passionate about Green issues.
My HERO IS A TREE
(for Val Berry)
Leaves on my hero are budding,
the music of spring as sweet as ever heard;
swallows returning bring life
to field and valley, filling the lonely heart
with thoughts of love;
Leaves on my hero are singing
songs of summer as feisty as passion;
young folks laughing bring life
to field and valley, filling hearts growing old
with memories of love;
Leaves on my hero are turning
read and gold in the company of dreams,
swallows departing, sure to return
to field and valley while hearts young and old
fly the colours of love;
Leaves on my hero are drifting
across time and space, world without end;
tears of pain, joy and hope
flying field and valley like bright-eyed children
running with kites;
Leaves on my hero are budding;
the music of spring as sweet as ever heard;
swallows returning bring life
to field and valley, as well as new takes on old tales
we tell on love;
Leaves on my hero are singing
songs of summer as feisty as passion;
young folks laughing bring life
to field and valley, teasing hearts growing old
for knowing nothing of love;
Leaves on my hero are turning
red and gold in the company of dreams;
swallows departing, sure to return
to field and valley while hearts young and old,
fly the colours of love;
Leaves on my hero are drifting
time and space, world without end;
tears of pain, joy and hope
flying field and valley, the children we were,
running with kites
Copyright R. N. Taber, 2012, 2021
(Note: this poem has been only slightly revised since it first appeared in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012 and also read it on my YouTube channel.) RNT
An
earlier version of today’s poem first appeared in an anthology, Echoes of War, Poetry Now (Forward
Press) 2003 and subsequently in my collection the following year.
Now, regular
readers will be aware that have revised some poems since they first appeared in
my collections and on my blogs. Some readers say they prefer the original
version, but most prefer the revised version. All ask why I posted/published
the original version if it was likely to be revised later. Well, at the time I
wrote it, I saw it as a complete poem not the genesis for another. Years on, I
read some of my earlier poems and can see where they fail, to one degree or
another, either because they don’t say quite sat what I meant to say or don’t
say it at all.
Once I
get back inside a poem, I can see where the cracks need filling, not merely
papered over. Writing a poem from the outside working inwards is very different
to writing from the inside and working outwards. Yes, the original is written from within the
poet, but he or she only created the poem head and heart have shaped; the poem
itself, as a developing organism, needs
to have say in that development.
Creating
a poem is one thing and, yes, sometimes it is enough, but not always; any
further development will comes late so long as the writer leaves room in the poem
for that, and I always do. Moreover, I have always had a sense of this with my
poems so always kept in mind that I would need to publish new editions of my
collections at some point to allow for and include revisions/developments in
some poems. [Revisions that appear on my
blogs will appear in new editions after 2015.]
From time
to time, someone gets in touch to say he or she enjoyed both an original and
revised revision of a poem, but especially enjoyed comparing the two. One reader wrote to say they found it ‘intriguing’
to look inside my head and see how an original version of a poem led into the
later version.
While I
dare say critics will see some of my poems as failures (they may well be right)
I see them as relating to the person/poet I was at the time I wrote them. Hopefully,
I have changed with passing time (hopefully for the better); similarly, my
poetry. Readers are welcome to form their own opinion. Whatever, having written
something, it make sense to share it, surely? So I have published my
collections since 2001 and feedback, plus the changing nature of my own personal
space. will result in new editions after the publication of a final collection -
Diary of a Time Traveller in 2015 - when
I hit 70.
Now, there
is more than one take on aspiration, and somewhere along the line we have to
make choices; sometimes it may seem as if the choice is whether or not we are
prepared to let someone else make that choice for us. But isn’t that just
passing the buck?
Whatever,
few things on this earth are anywhere near as simple as we try to make them
appear, certainly not that complex network of communications, missed
communications, mixed messages and calls
for commitment that comprise the human mind.
BEYOND BELIEF
Some say he sought freedom,
preferring martyrdom to repression;
others point to sentiments
expressed pertaining to the zeal
of a
fundamentalist
waging war against the world
armed with Holy Word
Some say he followed a star,
near blinded by its glorious light;
others call
him a Messiah
come in peace with a fire in his
belly
no one could
extinguish,
a measure
of anguish fuelling
growing desperation
Some say, he was brainwashed
as a
child, taught how the finest ends
justify
appalling means,
suicide as
a political statement
absolving conscience
from the
agony heaped on body bags
at a roadside
Some call him a Dark Angel
that did not know him as well as
she
who knew his fears,
saw tears fall, final choices made,
sent alone, small and scared
to brave The Word, bomb the world,
no one
spared
Ashes, poor
apology for a sorry world
and its every word
Copyright
R. N. Taber 2003; 2012
[Note: An
earlier version of this poem appears in The
Third Eyeby R. N.
Taber, Assembly Books 2004.]
Someone
very special to me once bought me an album of the late, great Ella Fitzgerald
called Ella Sings the Blues. She was, of course, a great jazz singer. But, my, couldn't she sing Blues!Mind you, Ella could sing anything and it would leave a lasting impression on the listener.
My late
mother also loved Ella and I remember playing it some years after she died and
thinking maybe she was listening to it, too, in that Great Unknown we call death. I didn't feel in the least bit sad. On the contrary, the experience transcended my sadness to an indescribable feeling approaching enlightenment, and my tears confirmed rather than contradicted it. Moreover, I was in the early stages of recovery from a nervous breakdown at the time and like to think Mum was looking out for me as she always did.
Whimsical,
yes, of course, but...don’t we all do whimsy sometimes?
Photo: Ella Fitzgerald (taken from the Internet)
ELLA
SINGS THE BLUES
How will
it be when I’m dead?
Will I
hear music playing in my head,
see doves fly by in a clear blue sky,
hear a
newborn baby’s very first cry,
and Ella
singing?
How will
it be when I die?
Will I
wing with doves, oh, so high
that I
can look down and see
those
I’ve loved crying rivers for me,
or rivers
run dry?
How will
it be when I’m gone?
World
keeps turning and life goes on.
so where
does that leave me,
courtesy
(hopefully) of a spirituality
come
clean?
How will
it be when I’m dead?
will I
still compose poems in my head,
grieve a
sorry world lost its way
for
listening to what its ‘betters’ say
who
haven’t a clue?
I’ll
never know until I’m dying
but when
I am, be sure I’ll be flying high
among
doves with you, listening
out for
every newborn baby’s crying,
and Ella
singing
Copyright
R. N. Taber 1982; 2010
[From: Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N.
Taber, Assembly Books, 2012]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber Today’s poem is especially for ‘Hanna’ who asked if I have another poem about dementia as she looks after her brother who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s; they both liked Misty Memories that I posted recently. About 750,000 people here in the UK have dementia, and this number is expected to double in the next thirty years. I have seen the unbearably sad consequences for both sufferers and their carers. The British Government says it is committed to improving the care and experience of people with dementia and their carers by transforming dementia services to achieve better awareness, early diagnosis and high quality treatment at every stage and in every setting, with a greater focus on local delivery of quality outcomes and local accountability for achieving them. Let us hope so. Some young people may say it does not affect them, but I know of at least two school children helping to look after a parent who has Alzheimer’s. Besides, we all have to grow old, and who knows…? I once knew someone with Alzheimer’s who had been an English teacher and always loved poetry. Now and then in the later stages of the disease, she would come out with a very apt line or even a whole verse from a poem she’d once been able to recite by heart. So great an impression had some poems and events made on her that even the darker mists of memory failed to engulf them completely. This poem is a villanelle, was inspired by people like my late friend and also the author Sir Terry Pratchett; indeed, all families/carers, some whom I have known personally, that have experienced or are experiencing the truly heartbreaking task of watching their loved ones' mental faculties slowly winding down. HARVESTING IMAGINATION Wheels of the mind winding down; though time play fast and loose with us, we’ll reap a harvest of imagination A smile but lost its way in a frown seeks sanctuary in Cinderella memories, wheels of the mind winding down Though dignity wear a faded gown as it stumbles through a Hall of Mirrors, we’ll reap a harvest of imagination A heart that wears love’s crown keeps beauty in the folds of its favours, wheels of the mind winding down Love’s spirit unbowed, unbeaten, turning the pages of life’s kinder stories, we’ll reap a harvest of imagination Among spoils of battles lost and won, pathways to peace for all benign ghosts; wheels of the mind winding down, we’ll reap a harvest of imagination Copyright R. N. Taber 2010 [Note: This poem first appeared in Ygdrasil, an online poetry journal, June 2010, and subsequently in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books 2010]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber [Update - December 25th 2019: Sadly, the Memorial Wall I am told the wall has now been neglected and encroached upon by commercial ventures to the extent that the path which used to exist taking visitors past the wall and giving a fine view over the bay has been blocked. Apparently, even before the memorial was unveiled five years ago, certain townsfolk made it clear they did not want it so now they, at least, will be well pleased. Complaints to the local council have been ignored, in my humble opinion a disgrace. Yes, the memorial was for those who have died of AIDS in Bournemouth, but - metaphorically - it was also for those who have died of AIDS worldwide; since people are still dying of AIDS worldwide, it would appear that human nature is such that it doesn't really care...? Whatever happened to the Spirit of Christmas...?]
December 1st is World AIDS Day. I wrote
today’s poem at the request of the Chairman of DAMSET, an HIV-AIDS Educational
Trust in Dorset after giving a poetry reading in Bournemouth public library,
and subsequently dedicated it to DAMSET in my collection, Accomplices to Illusion. DAMSET was established with a view to
creating a memorial mural for all those in Bournemouth who have died of AIDS, and was
later extended to cover the whole of Dorset. The mural is now well established
near the pier and I feel very privileged that my poem is included.
I read
the poem on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square on July 14th 2009 as
my contribution to sculptor Sir Antony Gormley’s One and Other ‘live sculpture’ and you can still catch it at the
British Library archive. [However, be warned; the video of my plinth
experience and (very informal) poetry reading lasts an hour.]: www.oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T [NB: Sept 19, 2019 - The British Library confirmed today that he video is no longer available as it was incompatible with a new IT system, However, it still exists and BL hope to reinstate it and make it available to the public again at some future date.] RNT
I also read
it in Bournemouth, by the DAMSET mural, for my YouTube channel and have posted
the (much) shorter video below. While feedback suggests some readers cannot access You Tube for various reasons, those who can may prefer to click on the direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKzi9VRjuq0 OR go to the channel and search under title: http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF A BEACH
Sun and
moon, sailing fickle skies
to safe
harbours;
Sea, like
a cabbage-stained tablecloth
edged with
white lace;
Heads
peering up, peering down
as they
have always done,
listening
to waves, voices of the heart
that stay
with us, move on with us,
play a
part in our lives, no matter all
temporal
hosts come and gone,
sun and
moon out of reach, cabbage
stains on
the world’s tablecloths…
tales
told by shells on Bournemouth
beach of
those whose faces may
blur with
time but we remember them,
who died
of AIDS and not to blame
(the
fruits of love bitter-sweet, yet better
by far to
live by it than hate)
nor sexuality,
physicality, morality,
any match
for our own mortality
but as
small boats on a passionate sea
driven by
a feeling for integrity;
Come a
time when death may put love
out of
reach, then take a walk
on the
sand, talk with the waves, listen
to shells
on Bournemouth beach
(or any
other that stirs a grieving soul
to
recover the heart’s grail);
join a
passing ship awhile, carrying
family,
friends, lovers, even
old
neighbours…by day and night,
be they
gay or straight…cruise
Loving
Memory’s fair shores, share
old
jokes, laugh about crises
over
cabbage stains on best tablecloths
To inner
eye (and ear) time never deleted
nor love,
though AIDS, ever defeated
[Bournemouth,
Dorset, March 2006)
[From:Accomplices To Illusion, by
R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]